


Bad Luck

by TalkingGrape



Category: 6 Underground (2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, four is very not okay in this, not much to tag this is just me kicking the shit out of my favorite boi, some severe whumpage happening here, things get really bad and then betterish but then bad again and then okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-19 10:00:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22275799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingGrape/pseuds/TalkingGrape
Summary: Four is superstitious, he can't help it. As someone who's main job is to jump from precarious rooftop to rooftop, with only whatever God is feeling like paying attention that day to help him out or hurt him, he can't afford not to be. Unfortunately, believing in good luck means also believing in bad luck, and Four has some seriously bad luck.
Comments: 42
Kudos: 289





	1. Ohana Means Family

**Author's Note:**

> guess who wrote an entire fic before uploading the first chapter for once? this bih. if you cant find the content u crave, gotta make it urself. s/o to my spidey and bnha fics for still existing unfinished in the universe, im sorry ive betrayed you, but billy is my muse now. non beta'd, written in a sleep deprived frenzy, im sorry for what ive done.

Don’t look down. Good luck. What’s the worst that can happen? Saying shit like that brings bad luck, and Billy’s experienced the ass end of these seemingly harmless phrases more than enough times to know this. From the first time he tried free running and failed to follow the aforementioned simple advice to the time he was nearly left to die by his own team in Hong Kong. He’s learned that it simply just be like that sometimes. 

At first it was just little things, small events that started to snowball and pile up into bigger things. Running out of bullets too quickly, always getting stuck with the stealth mission and being caught up high and dry with no armor, almost always being the poor fuck that someone has to go back for because its really hard to watch your six when you’re fifty feet up in the air doing some backflipping stunt shit with an active grenade in one hand and an essential piece of evidence in the other. You know, small stuff. Just bad luck. Little shit that gets laughed off with Blaine buying him a beer and Amelia telling him to be more careful so she doesn’t have to work as hard. 

This time, however, Billy is starting to think that maybe he’s the real source of the bad luck, and the little omens are just icing on the metaphorical shit cake of his nonexistent life. Because this time there was no good luck, there was no don’t look down. Yet here he is, buried beneath concrete and wood, pinned to the ground like an insect by rebar and struggling to suck in a solid breath through the fog of dust and smoke. 

There was no warning that the building was coming down, no shout of ‘look out’ over the comms, just a sudden heat at his back and then the realization that shit was going down. All Billy has is the assumption that something blew up when it shouldn’t have, or maybe it went perfectly to plan, just not their own, and now he’s paying the price for it. He can only catch bits and pieces of conversation over the comms, the sounds of his team, his family continuing their mission without him, no doubt. He doesn’t even bother speaking, he’s a dead man already, whether they know he’s still alive or not. It’s not like one will let them double back for him like this. What are they gonna do? Hand pick the rubble off of him and hope it doesn’t shift and crush him in the process? Call for help? He’s fucked and he just has to accept it, even if it fucking hurts worse than the rebar spiked through his left shoulder. 

Blood slowly pools beneath him, the liquid glinting from a distant streak of light that creeps through two wooden beams and Billy wonders if maybe he’s closer to the surface of all of this than he thinks he is. He _was_ on top of the building when it collapsed. Frankly, he’s astonished that he’s alive at all, although he wishes he wasn’t. Maybe he’s being punished for something. God knows death on contact with the ground is better than listening to the only people he has left leave him to die, and yet here he is, experiencing it first hand. 

The comm in his ear crackles with gunfire and shouting and One and Javier are bantering about something that Billy can’t figure out and all he wants to do is rip the goddamn thing out of his ear because fuck if it isn’t making his head throb with an agony that he’s never experienced before. Every bullet sends an icepick straight through his temple and down his spine. He groans, head lulling lazily to the side as he starts to idly pull on his right arm in an attempt to free it from the rubble so he can take out the comm. He doesn’t plan on speaking to anyone, and hearing them speak is now effectively hurting him in two different ways. 

Unfortunately for Billy, any movement of his arm sends a firey pain from his wrist up to his shoulder that makes his vision crackle black and static around the edges, and he can’t make the injured appendage work with him enough to wriggle it free of whatever it’s trapped under (maybe some rocks?). As a last resort, he settles on just trying to shake the comm free from his ear, which turns out to be a fucking mistake. 

He swears he feels his brain hit the side of his skull and the universe is sent reeling to the left, the ground beneath him tilting despite his inability to see it. Closing his eyes only worsens the effects and makes him feel like he’s floating uselessly in space, making him nauseated and even more dizzy. Bile rises up in his throat and he does his best to swallow it down, groaning at the awful thought of puking on himself in such an enclosed space where he can hardly move his head. 

Taking a deep breath, and consequently coughing up the dust and flecks of dirt that he inhaled because of it, does nothing to quell the growing nausea inside of him, and the anxiety he feels at this fact doesn’t help. Seriously, on top of everything, now his corpse is gonna be dragged out of this shit pile covered in his own breakfast of strawberry poptarts? Cute. Real fucking cute. 

Rage and anxiety make his heart beat turn to static in his mind as he lets a few curses slip from his lips, because it's the closest thing he can get to punching something right now. At the very least his anger is helping to tamp down the nausea, and he doesn’t plan to move his head anytime soon after the first incident, so he hopes he’s in the clear again. All he has to do now is either bleed out or-

He hears his name being called out. Through the comms, the unmistakable sound of Camille carefully asking him if he’s okay and where he is floats through his mind and it sounds like it’s not the first time she’s asked. He wonders how long they’ve been asking after him. He wonders if he should respond. 

“Yeah. ‘M here.” Fear is what does it. Fear of being left alone to die, more than anything. Even if they don’t come back… Even if they don’t come back, maybe someone will at least talk to him until he bleeds out. 

He’s not sure who says it, but someone whispers ‘thank god’ under their breath at the same time One says “We’ve been over this before, bud, ‘here’ is not a location.” 

And, God, it’s so hard not to feel hopeful. So, so fucking hard. But he knows the minute he tells them that he’s under the building that just fell in on itself that they’ll have to turn tail and leave him behind. Even so, he still laughs quietly at One’s statement, ignoring the burn and wheeze of his lungs. “Y’know that tall- that building that’s under construction? Th’ one that I was s’posed to be on top of?” Forming sentences over three words is a struggle. His mind is in the middle of the ocean on a boat dealing with a horrible case of seasickness and vomiting over the edge of the ship instead of helping him do words good right now. 

The comms are quiet just a little too long, or maybe not, it’s hard to keep track of time at the bottom of hell. But it’s long enough for Billy. Long enough that he knows they know. And then, just because he hates himself, and Billy too, apparently, One talks again. “What about the building, Four?” 

And then, just because he hates himself, Billy responds. “‘M under it now.” And He braces himself for the worst. For the part where One says ‘well then we have to leave you’ and everyone halfheartedly argues, but they know they can’t dig him out, so they leave too. Then they talk until they're out of range, and maybe that’s long enough for Billy to die, but maybe it’s not, because honestly, Billy was really hoping he’d be dead already, but he’s not. He’s just overwhelmed and sick and scared and alone and honestly? He doesn’t want to die alone like this. He wants to die doing a kickflip in an explosion, or throwing himself on a grenade to save someone. He wants his death to have meaning. Or at least be, like, cool. 

The silence either drags on forever, or Billy thinks a thousand thoughts in under a second. Either way, it takes far too long for One to respond, and when he does, Billy actually has to (unsuccessfully) choke back a sob. “We’re on our way.” 

A voice in the back of his head tells him to argue, to say that they need to just leave him. That he’s not even worth it anyways. A much louder voice, the one that he’s speaking out loud with just says, “Fuck, thank you so fucking much, fuck, fuck, fuck.” His breath hitches in a way that may or may not be consistent with crying, and if it is, no one mentions it. 

Blaine cuts in at this point, his voice a kind of stern yet gentle tone Billy’s only ever heard once before when he introduced himself with his real name. “Listen, kid,” And god, Billy’s only nineteen and he might die here and this is, like, the seventh time this year something like this has happened and he really needs a new fucking hobby. “If you can, I need you to start very, very carefully working your way up to the surface. If there’s something that you can’t safely move, don’t, just wait, and we’ll be there, okay?” 

Billy lets out a harsh breath, his skin cold despite the sweat covering him and making mud out of the dust that insists on raining down over him. “Can’t move. I-” He tests his arm again just to be sure, still hurts like a bitch. Then the one with rebar through it, even though he knows it’s stupid, it’s definitely pinned down. Also hurts. And then his legs-

“Guys.” His voice is shaking harder than ever, his eyes blown wide and he’d have to be a fucking jackass not to admit the tears streaking down his face now. “You ‘ave to leave me. I can’ get out, ‘n even if I could-”

One cuts him off easily, sounding confident despite the severity of their situation. Billy doesn’t have to hear the background noise in the comms to know that there’s still gunfights and lives being risked right now. “We’re not leaving you. We don’t do that anymore.” 

“Yeah, man. We’re a family.” Javier adds on and everyone echos their agreements. It curdles like milk in Billy’s gut. He thinks he might once again run the risk of puking. 

Again, this time much more forcefully, Billy repeats himself. “You ‘ave to leave me.” His voice cracks at the end despite his conviction and his lip shakes. “I can’t feel m’ legs.” To prove his point to no one but himself, he tries once again to kick, to shake his legs, to do something, anything. Nothing. Tears cut clear streaks down the dirt caked to his cheeks, and at this point, he finally feels like he may be able to accept his death. 

“Leave me. Find an eight. Make sure they don’ ‘ave shit luck like me.” He closes his eyes, wishing once again that he could take out his comm to make this feel more final. As it is he can still hear protests and arguments breaking out in the group. One, the fucker, is actually pulling for going back for him still. Javier, Amelia, and Camille seem to, at the very least, be considering Billy’s reasoning. Part of him, the part that disgustingly still clings to hope, feels betrayed by them. The other part, the much louder part, is very tired and is convincing him that a nap sounds nice right about now. 

The shivers that had been plaguing his body have died down to almost nothing, and he thinks he remembers Amelia telling him that’s actually a bad thing, that his body is running out of energy, and he knows he’s not supposed to sleep with a head injury, and especially if he’s losing blood, but what the fuck else is he supposed to do if he has no energy? Not exactly like he can hop down to the corner store and pop a RedBull right now, can he? The noise in the comms is drowned out by the static of his heartbeat and his own muffled thoughts as he closes his eyes, the world fading out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im starting to notice that i have a habit of writing in long, rambling paragraphs that are probably really hard to read, like if i clicked on this, i wouldnt read it bc id get a headache following along. so. sorry. ill try to work on that.


	2. Grit Your Teeth and Hold Your Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy's not dead, but he's also not definitely alive.

The world fades back in in a very unpleasant way that consists of loud, obnoxious swearing in multiple foreign languages, obscene amounts of pain radiating from basically everywhere, and a nice closeup shot of One’s lovely face like  _ this fucking close  _ to Billy’s face. One has a bewildered, yet relieved look on his face as he, and I shit you not, brushes a stray hair out of Billy’s eyes. “I thought we lost you there, buddy.” 

Considering the current situation, Billy is still pretty sure he’s dead. He glances around, noticing that he’s only a few feet away from where he was before, puddle of still drying blood making it very obvious as to where his previous resting place lies. And then he’s being propped up, Amelia talking a mile a minute about needing to stop the bleeding and telling Billy to let her know if he feels  _ anything at all _ and he knows he should considering the wincing and horrified faces that everyone is making at him. He looks around questioningly, an obvious, unspoken ‘what the fuck is happening?’ in the hopes that someone will answer. 

Camille, the absolute goddess, steps in to explain as Blaine, Javier, and One all get to work forming a human gurney to haul Billy into their getaway vehicle. “Sometimes just applying pressure to a spot that’s heavily bleeding isn’t enough to slow it, so Amelia is pinching your artery shut with her fingers.”Ah. That explains the horrified looks. As she speaks, she balls up her own shirt and presses it to Billy’s shoulder. He figures it’s best not to rain on her parade by telling her that the hole goes the whole way through so that’s kind of useless. 

Despite his desire to respond to literally anything anyone is saying or doing, he just. He can’t keep up. Everything is happening so fast, he’s in so much fucking pain, but at the same time he can’t feel shit below the waist, maybe even a little above it if he can’t feel what Amelia’s doing? And then they came back for him even though he’s useless now, and maybe he’s always been useless because don’t they always have to drop what they’re doing and save his stupid fucking life? And there’s still gunfire and yelling, and he’s pretty sure One just gave him mouth to mouth, and that may mean that he might’ve died? Or maybe One wanted to kiss him, which, gay. And also creepy. Mostly gay though. 

Getting him into the car is an ordeal. He needs to be laying on his stomach, but Amelia also needs to be in the back seat,there’s not enough room for everyone so Camille and Javier take off separately, and everyone is being careful of how he’s laying until he gently reminds them (yells at them) that he can’t fucking feel his legs anyways so just fucking smush those shits in there however already and fucking drive goddammit. 

The drive back is even more of an ordeal with screaming and shooting and stress and it’s hard to process when Billy is in so much pain that he has ascended to another plane of existence. When One looks back at him and asks him how he’s doing, he feels like he’s six years old, staying home from school because he lied about a stomach ache and for whatever reason he just feels overwhelmingly  _ guilty _ in that exact moment to the point where all he can manage is a meek “Sorry.”

Then he realizes that this must be his life flashing before his eyes. Something that is very not funny, but he laughs anyways and his lungs crackle inside his poorly constructed paper mache ribs. Amelia does something, or twists something, or stabs something, or what-the-fuck-ever and it  _ hurts _ and Billy is fucking sick of feeling pain. Stars are dancing in his vision and the scenery is flying by. He’s been tossed around by rough turns tens of times already or maybe even hundreds, who knows. He whines out in pain, maybe a millisecond after Amelia does that thing, or maybe he does it an hour later, he’s not sure. 

Amelia looks up, talking to someone, maybe everyone, not him though. “He felt that, that’s good. That’s something.” Okay, rude. Talking about him like he’s not there. Is he there? Where is he? Is he alive still? He must be? He blinks. Or maybe he just opens his eyes? Since when were they closed? 

Time flies by and stands still all at once like Billy is an unstoppable force being thrown into an unmovable object and it’s more than enough to make his stomach curl up in a very familiar way. He assumes that, at the very least, warning would be appreciated before he pukes everywhere, and since he’s sure he’d toss if he opens his mouth, he just does some deep breathing through his nose, well, as deep as he can with the ghost of an entire building still haunting his ribs and making it sofuckinghard. 

Amelia presses a hand to his face, her own a mask of concern that he doesn’t see often, if ever. “Billy, say something.” 

He’s not sure if she’s been trying to talk to him for a while or if he just recently did something concerning, but either way he dutifully follows the command. “I am very good at not throwing up.” 

Amelia nods slowly, lips pursed for a moment, like she’s trying to decide something. “That’s good, I’m sure we all appreciate that,” Both One and Blaine agree from the front seat. “But I was hoping you could answer my question? Can you feel this?” 

Billy can’t see what she’s doing, and he can’t feel it either. He also isn’t sure how long she was trying to get that answer from him. He especially doesn’t appreciate the hardcore baby gloves that are being brought out for him. He may be high on pain and dizzy from blood loss and also borderline incoherent, but he’ll be damned if someone babies him because of it. “No. Did I die?” 

No answer. 

“So One  _ is  _ a necrophiliac, then. Cool, cool.” He bobs his head in a way that was supposed to just be nodding, but eventually just becomes a perpetual motion that he isn’t even positive that he’s in control of anymore. 

One splutters indignantly in the front seat, trying to think of a come back that doesn’t step heavily on the fact that Billy’s heart had just recently completely fucking stopped and failing. Amelia hides a smile behind a grimace and continues her work. Blaine shakes his head picks up the speed, muttering, “Fucking crazy kid, cracking jokes about his own death.” 

There’s no chance in hell that they’ll ever make it to the plane and then back to America and to their base before Billy becomes straight fucking jerky, so they improvise. In this case, improvising means holding up a small family medical practice with two doctors and three nurses. It doesn’t have the medical supplies a hospital does, but it also isn’t as unequipped as the first aid kit on the plane is, so Amelia says that they have about a fifty fifty chance of keeping him alive if he’s lucky. He can’t help but laugh at that, and one shoots him a look like he just watched a puppy die. But like if one wasn’t a psychopath and was the kind of person that would actually be sad over watching a puppy die. That kind of look. 

The doctors and two of the nurses get tied up and Javier and Blaine get put on guard duty watching over them. The third nurse is in charge of showing Amelia where everything is while Camille and One get Billy on the table and do exactly whatever the fuck Amelia says, whenever the fuck she says. Camille gets to hunting down every piece of bandaging and gauze she can find in the building while One stays with Billy and keeps pressure on his shoulder. All the while, Billy continues to float on his cloud of agony and blood loss, picking up on bits and pieces of conversation here and there, but mostly just staring at one with a scrutiny that doesn’t fit his current dreamstate. 

After a few minutes (or seconds, or decades, or hours) One finally humors Billy’s incessant staring. “What?” 

“I didn’ drown.” 

One does a double take, tries out the beginning of at least seven different words before he finds one that fits right in his mouth, and then he finally addresses the stupidity that Billy just blurted out. “I’m aware of this, yes.” 

“You gave me mouth to mouth.”

It takes zero time for One’s look of exasperated endearment to turn to a look of a deer caught in the headlights. Billy knows he knows he’s caught. He feels extremely satisfied.

“If m’ heart stopped- which I’ve been recently informed that it did- I only needed chest compressions. That’s the new thing, right?” Not even Billy knows where he’s going with this, but fuck is he going. “So what the fuck was that?” 

The deer in the headlights look slowly turns to one of anger, then confusion, then back to anger, then to mild annoyance, then to severe annoyance, and then back to anger. But anger is One’s default emotion, at least as far as Billy’s concerned. “Your most coherent thought five seconds ago was how good you are at not puking and now you’re the Sherlock Holmes of mouth to mouth? I wasn’t thinking about current practices, I just did it how I remembered learning it the first time, I wasn’t thinking.” 

Billy snorts, a wet sound that loosens something clotted and metallic in his throat that makes him gag. One is on him in a second, helping him sit up as he turns to the side and and coughs up and ungodly lump of blood and dirt, spitting it onto the floor. One grimaces at the sight, helping Billy lay back down as he reapplies pressure to the boy’s shoulder and wincing at the sound of the kid’s pained groan. “That’s real cute. I’m sure Amelia will love to see that when she comes back in.”

“And to think you kissed me.” Billy hacks out a wheezing impression of a laugh, his eyes squinting up both from his smile and the harsh lighting of the ceiling. 

“Didn’t kiss you.” One rebutts. 

“Did.” 

“Didn’t.” 

“But you did. And while I was dead too, that’s fucked up man.” 

“Kid, I fucking didn’t.” One glares down at Billy, pushing maybe a little too hard on the kid’s shoulder with a clenched jaw. Billy lets out a shocked whine, a bruised, dirt covered hand flying up and weakly gripping at One’s wrist and tugging. He lets up immediately, and Billy lets out a shaky sigh. They both apologize at the same time and One winces. “No, kid. I’m sorry. I can make light of a lot of fucking situations, but this just isn’t one of them. I mean you were- You didn’t have a pulse. We dug for so long and we got you out, we even got you to open your eyes, but then you didn’t close them again and you weren’t breathing and I didn’t even check for a pulse, I just saw that you weren’t breathing and I fucking panicked, okay? I just did what I thought would help, and it worked, and I’d do it a thousand more times if I had to.” 

Jesus. Okay. Not what Billy was expecting. Not at all. It’s a lot for him to process, especially after six’s funeral. To see such change in One? To see him care for someone, for Billy nonetheless? He’s fucking shook, to say the least. He’s saved from more conversation by Amelia and Camille returning, thank the fucking spaghetti monster on high. 

Amelia looks concerned, but less than she did in the car, and even less so when she sees Billy still awake. “I see that you seem to be doing better since I managed to cauterize the main source of your bleeding.” 

That sentence goes into Billy’s head, bangs around for a minute, some words fall out, it bangs around a little longer, and then the most important word finally processes. “Sorry. Did you fucking say cauterize?”

Nodding, Amelia responds, “Mhmm, I had to use a lighter and the barrel of my gun, but I got it done, and you didn’t feel a thing, so relax.” 

Billy is goddamn gobsmacked. Fucking bamboozled. And some other third thing. “Are you fucking kidding me? What if I had felt it?” 

Camille is the one to speak up this time, straightfaced and straightforward. “Even better then, wouldn’t you say?”

And for some reason that one feels like he’s being punched in the gut. Because, yeah. It would be. It’d mean he still has his legs. It’d mean he’s not useless. But instead here he is. Being saved for no goddamn reason. What is there for him after this? He has no secondary skill to bring to the table. His thing was running across rooftops and being sneaky, two things that are hard to do without legs. 

“Two, why don’t you go help guard the staff since it seems like Amelia’s pretty much got it covered back here now?” One comes to the rescue, saving Billy from whatever shit he was about to say next. 

By some miracle, Camille either actually takes the hint, or is actually okay with the demotion, because she leaves the room, and then it’s just Billy, Amelia, and One. One, who is way too eager for this entire situation to be over. Although Billy feels pretty much the same way, just about his own fucking life. He claps his hands together, the sound and sudden lack of pressure on his shoulder shocking Billy. “Alright, doc, what now?” 

Amelia glares at One for the tactless segue, but answers the question nonetheless. “Now he needs blood, fluid, and stitches. A lot of stitches. And probably a bone or two set, I haven’t checked yet.” Comforting. She turns to Billy. “Do you know your blood type?”

“Same as mine.” One cuts in before Billy can answer in the negative, and he’s both relieved and creeped out. 

“Shouldn’ be surprised about that, yet here I am. Surprised. And concerned.” 

“No you shouldn’t be. And you shouldn’t be concerned either, you should be glad. It  _ is  _ the kind of information that could save your life after all.” One looks pointedly at Billy, like he’s waiting for the punchline of a joke. 

Billy looks dumbly back at One, then around the room, then down to his still sluggishly bleeding shoulder, then over to Ameilia who is prepping an I.V., then down at his legs that are laying in what would normally be an uncomfortable position for him, then back to One. “Nah, seems unlikely.” 

He can see the regret for ever saving him in One’s eyes, but to the man’s credit, he does not voice it. Instead he just rolls up his sleeve when Amelia instructs him to, and lets her take two bags of blood, which Billy is pretty sure is too much, but One says nothing. Until he stands up, then he complains about being dizzy, a complaint Amelia shuts down easily by asking him how he thinks Billy feels right now. The answer is that Billy is still on Planet Cotton and Agony, but he’s getting used to the culture. He’s learning the language and knows a few staple restaurants that he likes. He still gets lost sometimes, but he can ask for directions and he has a map that he can use. It still takes a while but he does find his way home eventually. The people are rude, but he’s not too polite either, so it’s fine. 

The next few minutes are spent with Amelia checking his arms, hands, and even feet for a decent spot to get an I.V. in. Nothing, zip, zilch. “Your veins are straw right now, you’re dehydrated and have too little of anything in your system. Poking you a bunch would hurt way more than help right now. It’s gotta be one and done.” She chews the inside of her lip for a moment before seemingly making a decision. “Look right.” 

Billy does as he’s told and he feels like he’s not going to like what’s going down. He’s correct when he feels a sharp pain in his neck, a definite indication that he’s being stabbed in the carotid artery. “I think this might be worse than the rebar in the shoulder.” 

Amelia hums in sympathy, making quick and careful work setting up the blood transfusion and fluids that Billy needs. “Not a fan of needles?” 

His first instinct is to shake his head, and he stomps that down quickly and viciously. “Nah, I’ve got tons of tattoos. Just not a fan of needles that risk popping me like a goddamn balloon and bleeding me out after spending like an hour of trying to do exactly not that.” 

“Fair point.” One speaks up from his spot across the room and- wait when did he get a cookie? 

“Bastard man.” 

One looks taken aback by Billy’s statement, his bewildered eyes meeting Billy’s cool glare. “Excuse me?” 

Billy purses his lips, quirking an eyebrow as he nods towards the cookie in One’s hand. “You’ve been holding out on me.” One quirks an eyebrow to mirror Billy’s expression and Billy holds out his least damaged arm (left, surprisingly) and makes a grabby hand. “Gimme.” 

One snorts (actually fucking  _ snorts _ ) and Amelia gently smacks Billy’s hand. “You can’t eat right now, Mr. about to puke at any second.” 

Sighing, Billy lets his head fall back to his pillow, willing his eyes to stay open despite the instant need for them to close once the smallest amount of comfort has been provided to him. “You’re wicked. And not the cool kind of wicked. The shitty kind. Like the dumb green Halloween witch kind of wicked.” 

It’s at this exact moment that Amelia pulls a scalpel out of  _ somewhere  _ and brandishes it directly above Billy’s chest in a way that makes him feel just a little less comfortable than he did moments before. “I know, I’m the worst. Hold still.” She cuts his shirt off of him. Just the shirt, not his skin like he was, for some reason, expecting. 

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was the visceral reaction of Amelia dropping the scalpel  _ right next to his head thank you very fucking much _ , or of One sucking in a shocked, hissed breath through his teeth. 

“Come on, I know ’m jacked, but this kind of reaction is a little ridiculous.” Billy plasters on a shit eating grin that doesn’t match the fear he feels in the pit of his gut and One starts pacing back and forth, casting an occasional glance at Billy looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. 

Amelia finally comes back from whatever world she was in, probably thinking up a game plan for treatment, and grabs the scalpel from where she dropped it, setting it aside. “Okay. Okay I can fix this. I can- One would you either sit the fuck down or get the fuck out?” One pauses, looking like he got caught doing a sin, before doing the latter and leaving the room like he just realized he’s super fucking late for a really important psycho murderer billionaire convention. 

There’s pressure on his chest and stars in his vision that he’s sure matches the firecrackers being set off in his lungs as he’s once again launched into the fucking stratosphere of agony. “Okay, you clearly felt that, good. Good.” 

Billy looks at Amelia, wide eyed and a little pissed off. “I’m fucking paralized from the waist down not neck down. I can move my fuckin’ arms!?” It comes out like a question, a very shouty question, because honestly he’s really fucking confused right now. 

“Yes, but you also spent the past thirty-something minutes in a state of hypovolemic shock, which could be impairing your senses. And you’re not out of the woods on that yet either, I  _ just  _ got your I.V. in.” 

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ “Wait. Wait wait wait. So, so you’re tellin’ me that-” 

“That nothing, Billy. We don’t know anything yet. And you still took a serious hit to your spinal cord. If you can’t move your legs that’s… it’s not a good sign. We can be hopeful, but not too hopeful. Not right now. Not when we’re still just trying to keep you alive.” 

It’s not what Billy wants to hear, not by a long shot, but it’s enough. Enough that he bites down on his need to say something biting and sarcastic every five seconds to cope and instead listens to Amelia’s instructions as she starts patching up his shoulder. Every moment is agony, and he wishes they could’ve knocked over a doctor’s office with at least a built in pharmacy so he could be high off his rocker for the stitches. Instead he just chews a few holes through the skin of his cheek and bares with it, wishing he’d just pass out from the goddamn pain already. 

After the front of his shoulder is patched up (Billy tries really, really hard not to think about the fact that the back still needs done) Amelia moves to his right and prepares to set his arm. She twists up a piece of the blanket he’s laying on and stuffs it in his mouth unceremoniously, and he curses himself for not doing that sooner to save his bloodied cheeks and lips. “I’m going to count down from three, okay?” 

Billy nods, but he knows this trick, he’s fully expecting it when she sets the limb on one, a sickening noise either reverberating through the room or his body, he can’t tell. His eyes all but roll up into his fucking head as he leans hard to the left and finally wretches up bile and blood, his chest heaving painfully and violently. His shoulders shake with the effort and he’s vaguely aware of Amelia’s voice and someone’s hands on him (probably Amelia’s, that’d make sense), but then there’s black clouds floating over his vision and he’s out cold before he can even convince his body to fall back onto the bed.


	3. Save The Turtles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plastic straws are bad for the environment.

Billy wakes up again fully reclined in one of the seats on One’s fancy-ass private jet, meaning he was either out for a really long time, or Amelia worked really fucking fast. He goes with a combination of both, and feels a little concerned for himself at the fact that he was unconscious for so long. 

The world is maybe a little less spinny and fuzzy than it had been before, but Billy’s been concussed enough times to know that he’s definitely still feeling it. His throat is dry and his mouth tastes like stagnant acid and copper. He wants to sit up, but the moment he moves to do so all he can feel is _painpainpain_ **_somuchfuckingpain_ ** exploding from both his shoulders, through his ribs, and stabbing down his spine until it fizzles out at an undefinable point and he’s not sure if it’s that fact or the pain that makes him choke on his own spit a little. 

Blaine is there in a second, easing him back into the chair and raising the back just enough to get Billy slightly upright, but not enough to put any pressure on his ribs. “Easy there, champ, not sure there’s any part of you that you’re allowed to use without team assistance right now.” He offers Billy a cup of water, and Billy downs the whole thing before Blaine can finish telling him to drink it slowly. 

“I think I might be in love with you.” God he was so fucking thirsty. For the water. Blaine just laughs, refills the cup, and sits it within reach for Billy if he wants more before taking his seat across from him. “So how long have we been in the air?” Or, more importantly, how close are they to home. The seats in the jet are comfortable and all, but Billy would kill to just be in his own bed right now, sleeping until he either dies or can miraculously walk again. 

“Awhile, actually. You slept for a long time, man. We already drew straws for who was gonna take care of you if you ended up not waking back up. Should be back home safe and sound in a little over an hour.” 

He tries to read Blaine’s face for any sign that he might be joking about the straw thing, but he doesn’t look like he’s trying not to laugh, and that does sound like the kind of dumbass shit this crew would do. “I’d really love to know how that went.” Not. He pinches his eyes shut and sighs, diverting to a different topic. “How’s Amelia?” 

A grimace fits over Blaine’s face as he shakes his head, “You really don’t, though. One threw hands.” Billy’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but before he can ask why, Blaine is answering his next question. “And Amelia is fine, just tired and worried about you. You know, since you’re the one that’s actually injured, not her.” Blaine raises up an eyebrow, obviously amused by the fact that Billy is checking in on Amelia after having to put up with his rowdy and delirious ass. 

“Wait, go back to that first thing, though. One tried to hit someone? What, did he draw the short straw?” 

The grimace is back, and Billy is considering nicknaming Blaine after the purple McDonald’s monster to match. “Not really, no. Well, he did, but that’s besides the point.” Billy fucking knew it, they did really draw straws. He gives Blaine a prying look, and Blaine breaks, knowing that Billy won’t give it up. “Camille said if you didn’t wake up we should just. You know.” He makes an ‘L’ shape with his fingers and points his index finger at Billy, dropping his thumb and making a ‘pew’ noise with his mouth. 

Billy is partially offended and partially in agreement with Camille. Although considering she was on the ‘fuck Billy lives’ party back when he was still under the building, he’s not very fond of her right now. “Honestly, she probably still thinks I should be put down now that my legs have gone to shit.” Billy doesn’t say that he agrees, but… Well he doesn’t think he’s much use being kept alive, either. 

“That’s pretty similar to what One said, too. And when she agreed, he pulled his gun, then she pulled her gun, and then Javier sucker punched him. And now we have to keep them on separate sides of the plane.” 

Now that. That is surprising. Honestly, he’d expect this to be more of a civil disagreement more than anything, but for one to get so worked up? Over him? Billy feels more dizzy than he has all day. “So. Who won?” 

Blaine laughs, nodding his head back towards the cockpit. “One, no doubt. He’s only got one black eye, Javier’s got plastic surgery. Rich boy really pulled out some kung foo shit outta nowhere.” 

“No shit? I thought he just did the nerdy magnet shit?” Apparently there’s a lot he doesn’t know about One. Like, a lot. He knows they have the same blood type, though. Whatever that is. 

Before Blaine can respond, the plane dips and rattles, _hard_. It’s just basic turbulence, but it’s enough to jostle every displaced and lacerated bone in Billy’s fucked up body, and it sends the air wheezing out of him. “Jesus titty-fucking christ.” 

Blaine is up and beside him in a second, one hand on his knee (not that he can feel it) and the other hovering over his least injured shoulder. “Shit, are you alright?” 

The intercom crackles on before Billy can speak, and One’s voice carries through the cabin. “We’re flying low for the last leg of the flight, so someone get something to strap Billy-boy down with to hold him still through the turbulence. Enjoy the rest of your flight. Except Three. Fuck Three.” 

Blaine eyes up Billy’s seatbelt for a moment before nodding to himself and strapping the younger boy in. “Guess One doesn’t know you’re awake yet.” 

“He used my name.” 

Blaine shoots Billy a confused look. “Yeah? He’s been doing that lately.” 

“No he hasn’t.” Billy hasn’t once heard one ever call him by anything other than Four until today. And even that wasn’t to his face. It was to everyone else because One thought Billy was comatose and wouldn’t hear it. 

“He calls everyone by their name unless we’re on a mission or he’s annoyed with them. He’s changed a lot since Turgistan.” Billy knows that, he’s seen it first hand. Hell, he was the one that One went back for in Turgistan too. And now this? 

“But he’s never. And I mean _never_ called me Billy.” So either one fucking hates him, or he hates the name Billy, or… fuck his head hurts too much to be thinking right now. 

Another patch of turbulence takes care of that for him, the sudden drops and rises having him straining against his seatbelt and gasping for air as his ribs creak and protest with every bump. He can feel Blaine’s eyes on him, and he can tell that the other is panicking because the turbulence is making it hard to breathe and if Billy can’t breathe for the next thirty minutes he’s kind of fucked. He tries to take a deep, shaky breath and again the plane jumps and shutters and suddenly he’s seeing fucking white. His breath is caught in his throat, he can’t inhale _or_ exhale anymore and that’s fucking terrifying. He blindly reaches out, eyes darting around the cabin trying to find a way to communicate what’s wrong without having the air to do so. 

Blaine is gone, since when was Blaine gone? And _why the fuck did he leave?_ Billy feels betrayed, scared, and hurt, but that last one is more of a physical pain than an emotional one. His shoulders shake, sending violent tremors down to his hands as he dumbly grasps at his seat belt like getting it off will suddenly make him able to breathe again. His fingers fumbly with the clasp for what feels like hours before dark hands cover his own and, oh, Blaine’s back. 

Suddenly he’s being laid down again and Amelia’s face is above him. It takes him too long of staring at her face to finally correlate the movement of her lips with the sound of her voice carrying through the buzzing in his head and he realizes that, oh, he’s being asked a question. Repeatedly. 

“Billy, you have to tell me what hurts or I can’t help you.” And that’s just the problem isn’t it? He _can’t_ because he _can’t fucking breathe_. He claws at this throat, weak, wet gasps barely giving him enough air to fit inside a coffee straw. 

It takes a moment, one whole painful, agonizing moment, but then Amelia figures it out. Something clicks in her eyes and she might not know the exact source of the problem, but she knows what the problem is, so she knows where to start looking. She starts by checking his throat for obstructions, and Billy knows that’s not what’s wrong, but he can’t tell her that, so he just lets her work via process of elimination, hoping that she’ll figure out what’s wrong with him before, after everything he’s been through, this is the shit that kills him. 

It’s whenever Amelia starts feeling over his ribs that she figures it out. She grazes her hand as gently as she can down his right side while still pressing hard enough to feel if anything is out of place, and just at the point where the pain makes Billy 80% sure he might see the face of God, she figures it out. “Shit, shit shit shit. He must have a punctured lung. The bumping around and the pressure of the seatbelt must’ve fully broken an already cracked rib and it turned inwards on his lung and now he can’t breathe and _I NEED A KNIFE._ ” 

The sudden shout startles Billy, earning a wet, gurgling impression of a gasp from him. Amelia looks down at him with something that looks like a sick mix of frustration and pity. “You’re just having the worst luck today, aren’t you?” 

And Billy wants to fucking cry and laugh and scream at that statement, because yeah, yeah he is. Isn’t he always? The pain in his chest isn’t getting any better (in fact it’s getting worse as time goes by) and black static starts to obstruct Billy’s vision. He has no way of alerting Amelia to any of this, but she seems to be aware of it anyways, be it either by some kind of sixth sense, or maybe her ability to keep track of the time passing since Billy stopped breathing. 

“Are we seriously on a plane full of fucking killers with no knife?” She glances down at Billy, her brow scrunching up with concern before it fades into one of resolve. “I have to do everything myself around here.” And then she leaves her place beside him, and Billy, despite knowing that she’s probably just going to get the knife she asked for, panics. 

Billy is left alone with Blaine, who is just staring dumb and scared at the spot above his head like it will hold all the answers to life, the universe, and everything, when all Billy needs right the fuck now is to breathe again. He tries, fuck if he doesn’t try, but every agonizing breath just sends white hot pain through his chest and makes the little air he does get in turn to fire inside him. Blood pools in his mouth and in his throat and he can’t even muster enough air to cough it out, so he just chokes on it along with every horrific attempt at a breath. 

Blackness creeps up on him again, and Billy is getting fucking sick of passing out at this point, especially when it comes with the uncertainty of waking up again. He’s starting to learn that there’s a difference between wanting to die and not wanting to be alive anymore. He thinks he probably falls into that second category. The one where he wouldn’t mind drifting off peacefully in his sleep, but in the face of possible death, he’s a bit intimidated. Like, he’s not actively seeking death, but if it comes at, like, an okay time where he doesn’t really have plans or anything left to live for, he’s good. Right now, he supposes, there are people that kind of want him alive, and he guesses that means he wants to be alive too, so dying would be a problem. 

Fuck him for caring. 

He’s brought out of his thoughts by another sharp pain in his chest, this one decidedly external, and much worse than any of the earlier ones. But it’s one that makes it a little easier to breathe. He chokes down a sweet, half-breath of air and meekly coughs up some blood before trying again, this time managing to actually get some air into his system. It’s still not much, not nearly enough for him to feel safe, but it’s enough that he’s not on the verge of dying rightthefucknow, and that’s something. He glances down at the knife in his chest, thankfully a smaller and thinner one than he was expecting. The hand around it is also paler than he was expecting. He looks up at the hands owner and makes eye contact with Camille, the usually stoic expression on her face is now an ugly mix of feelings that Billy can’t identify because he’s never seen her _feel_ anything before. 

“I’m sorry.” Billy’s not sure if she’s apologizing for stabbing him, or for wanting to leave him behind, or if she knows he knows about the straw incident. He just nods. She flexes her fingers around the knife, barely jostling it, but moving it enough that Billy makes an unidentifiable choking sound and the look on Camille’s face gets… worse? “Sorry. I just. It wasn’t real, when I didn’t see you. It would’ve been easy. To just leave you under the building. You’re not a person then. Just a voice. If you were comatose, you wouldn’t know if you were alive or dead. But now, watching you-” She cuts off, wiping at her eyes, and Billy can’t find it in him to be mad at her for anything she’s apologizing for. He’s not sure he could even before she stabbed him. 

Amelia cuts in before Camille can continue, gently ushering the other woman away so she can cleanly remove the knife and replace it with a… stainless steel straw? He supposes he should be happy it’s not plastic. Save the turtles and all that. Plus it’s slowly getting easier and easier to breathe, although he’s not even back up to half of what he normally is. But right now, it’s enough to keep him going, and that’s all that matters.


	4. Don't Jinx It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy gets drugs and One is a fucking dad.

The plane lands unceremoniously, although Billy is half afraid that he’ll pop another fucking lung at this rate. Blaine heads off to the medbay to grab a gurney for Billy while Amelia reams One out for not being more considerate of Billy in his flight path. One, for his part, actually looks ashamed when he learns about the popped lung incident. And for whatever reason, the whole ordeal has really made Billy crave bubblegum, although he keeps that request silent since everyone is frazzled enough without him being a literal five year old. 

Blaine returns shortly after Amelia’s lecture and One helps him load Billy onto the gurney. It hurts like hell being moved, and it’s a slow, slow process, but once it’s done Billy is extremely relieved to be entirely horizontal again. The lack of pressure on his ribs is heaven, the difficulty breathing in this position is not, but he figures he’ll have trouble breathing either way, so it’s fine. 

All Billy wants is to return to his trailer, and sleep all this shit off until his arms are healed enough that he can start working on… something. Anything to make him useful to the team again. But he knows that’s not in his cards for another long while. Amelia drags him off to the medbay, where he’ll likely be spending at least a few days if she has her way (which she will).

Again, Billy is manhandled from one place to another by Blaine and One, and Billy can’t help but wonder why One is here doing all of this when he usually insists on locking himself away doing anything but interacting with anyone ever? Amelia busies herself with gathering up supplies that she needs and setting them on a table beside Billy, sighing in what almost sounds like relief when she has enough. “Home sweet high-end medical supplies.” Billy raises an eyebrow at her sudden change in attitude and she ruffles his hair. “Let’s get you some fucking drugs, kid.” 

“Amelia, I’m so in love with you I can’t even express it with words, take me now.” After spending… however long he spent, in constant pain and dreamlike states of agony and confusion, even the possibility of something simple like ibuprofen is enough to get Billy rock fucking hard. 

“Disgusting.” Oh, One is apparently still in the room.

Amelia gives one a pointed look before shooing him out and shutting the door, turning back to her supply stash and pulling out a fresh needle to start an I.V. for Billy’s pain meds. “Not interested, but I appreciate the offer.” Soul crushing. 

The I.V. goes into his arm easily, and Billy is relieved he won’t need another fucking neck tap. Amelia seems to agree, sighing as she injects something into the line. “Alright kiddo. Now that we got you home and safe, I can promise you that you’re gonna get better. No more of this random and sudden bad luck complication bullshit. You just rest up now, okay?” 

And Billy wants to tell her that she jinxed it by saying no more bad luck, or argue that he himself is an entity made entirely of bad luck and sex jokes, but warmth is spreading through his veins and it feels so fucking nice that he can’t help but sigh and relax into the feeling, his head relaxing back against the pillow. All he can do is hum and nod, drifting off to sleep. 

Billy wakes up as unceremoniously as ever, covered in sweat and confused, the feeling of the thin blankets over him enough to crush him as he struggles out of the confining sheets, injuries and I.V. be damned. Because, for a split second, he’s not under the blankets safe at home, he’s under concrete pillars and wooden beams, scared and alone and no one is coming for him. 

Then there’s a hand on his chest, pressing him back onto the bed, and he has a distant alarm going off in his head that this should probably hurt a lot, but it doesn’t, why doesn’t it hurt?

“Easy there, buddy. You’re in the med bay, you’re safe now. It’s okay.” 

Billy knows that voice. He glances over to confirm his thoughts and yep, that’s One. “Why’re you here?” 

One shrugs in response, picking up a book off the floor and flipping it open to a spot near the middle. “Babysitting.” 

“I don’t need a fuckin’ babysitter.” All he was doing was sleeping anyways. 

One snorts at that, an eyebrow raised. “Yeah, and what were you going to do if I wasn’t here? Hop out of bed, fall on your ass and army crawl away?” 

“Whaddyou-” Billy’s drug addled mind is struggling to keep up with the joke until it hits him. He can’t. Fucking. Walk. Not anymore. He can’t free run either. That was his thing.  _ His thing.  _ And not just his thing that he did for the team. It was his thing that he did whenever he needed to clear his head, or whenever he was bored, or when he needed to blow off steam, or when he needed to get away for a bit. He could just be away from everything, everyone. Above the city, people watch from the best vantage point in town. And now he can’t even take the goddamn stairs. 

He picks idly at a loose thread in his sheets, clearing his throat as the silence draws on. “I jus’ wanted t’ get the goddamn sheets offa me. Constricting as hell. Could hardly breathe.” 

And One’s teasing smile turns to this- this fucking  _ look _ and all Billy wants to do is go back to sleep again. “This is going to be a thing, isn’ it?”

“What is?” One questions. 

“This whole, ‘Oh, Billy’s fuckin’ broken, how sad for him watch yer goddamn tone don’ upset the baby’ thing.” 

Billy has trouble reading emotions that aren’t annoyance and anger at the best of times, but now, under a heavy fog of Oxy, all he knows is that he’s pretty sure One is some kind of upset. “When did I say anything like that?” 

“You didn’t, you jus’. You have this goddamn look like- like you’re sorry I exist.” 

“Kid,” One breathes a heavy sigh, one that only helps to affirm Billy’s accusations. “Jesus christ. I’m not qualified for this. And you’re high.” He points at Billy accusingly like Billy just grabbed a fistful of Vicodin instead of it being administered to him by their ‘doctor.’ “But I’m not sorry you exist. And I’m not sorry that we saved you. I’m just sorry you have to go through all this shit.” 

Standing up, One gives Billy a solid pat on the thigh- and holy shit. “I’m gonna go grab Amelia, she’ll wanna know you’re up.” 

Billy stares wide-eyed at the spot One just touched like he left behind some kind of ooze when he made contact. “I felt that.” 

One stops mid-step, face matching Billy’s as he turns around. “Excuse me?” 

“I said I felt that. I could feel that. One, I-I fucking felt my leg.” Billy pokes at the spot curiously, brows furrowed. “It wasn’ like, the exact spot it was more like, like up from it, like-”

“Hold that thought, hold that very, very important thought.” One looks like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin, and if Billy wasn’t high as fuck, he’d probably feel the same. “I’m getting Amelia.” 

Billy nods, feeling the closest thing to hope he’s felt since One said they were coming to get him out from under the tower. He still can’t move his legs no matter how hard he tries, and he can’t feel much, if anything, but he can feel more than he thought, and maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe he’ll be able to walk again someday. Maybe he’ll be able to run. Maybe, just maybe. He’ll get lucky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg yall thats it for bad luck,,, i know the ending is very open ended, but i did that for a reason! bad luck is over but the story itself isnt, i plan very much on making this into a series! im taking a break right now for a super secret project that i cant reveal just yet, but in the meantime if youre looking for some incredible content, check out my friend carbonmonoxidepoinsoning's fic The New Bitch! her Eight is an incredibly well thought out character and she writes the ghosts super well. it also helps a ton that the story is really alluring. Definitely go give it a read! https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354894/chapters/53405269


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